Coalition: Federal cuts could close Seashore center for summer

The Cape Cod National Seashore's Province Lands Visitor Center in Provincetown could be closed throughout the summer season if federal budget cuts related to sequestration go into effect March 1, according to the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees.

SOUTH WELLFLEET – The Cape Cod National Seashore's Province Lands Visitor Center in Provincetown could be closed throughout the summer season if federal budget cuts related to sequestration go into effect March 1, according to the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees.

The budget cuts also could affect public access to Seashore beaches where daily monitoring of protected shorebirds currently occurs each summer, the coalition said Wednesday.

The Seashore, which encompasses about 44,000 acres across six of the Cape's easternmost towns, is one of the country's most popular national parks, with 4.4 million visitors last year.

The automatic reductions or “sequester” would trigger – absent a deal involving Congress and the White House – $85 billion in spending reductions over the final seven months of the federal fiscal year, split equally between defense and non-defense programs, according to The Associated Press. Exemptions would include Social Security, Medicaid and Food Stamps. The cuts would total nearly $1 trillion over the next decade.

In recent weeks, the retirees coalition acquired National Park Service documents that revealed the possible impact of budget cuts to the country's national parks.

The National Park Service would have to cut $110 million in the final seven months of the agency's current fiscal year, according to the coalition.

At the Seashore, about $376,000 will need to be cut by Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year, according to coalition spokeswoman Joan Anzelmo.

“That does not give them a lot of time to make those kinds of cut, and it's just about the time visitors start to come to Cape Cod in large numers,” Anzelmo said today.

Seashore Superintendent George Price was not available for comment earlier today. Deputy Superintendent Kathy Tevyaw referred all comments to National Park Service spokesman Jeffrey Olson.

“We remain hopeful that Congress is able to avoid these cuts,” Olson said in an email. “The National Park Service, like every government agency, has been asked to prepare plans in the event that the sequester happens. The planning process is ongoing.”

The public should be prepared for reduced hours and services provided by the National Park Service, Olson said.

Seashore Advisory Commission chairman Richard Delaney said today that Price, the Seashore superintendent, “is going to have make some tough calls.”

At the Seashore, the seasonal visitor center on Race Point Road in Provincetown would have to close because of a lack of money to staff and maintain it, according to the coalition. The center hosts about 260,000 people annually, the coalition said. It is typically open daily from May 1 through October 31, and it offers public restrooms, a bookstore, an information booth with park staff, films, educational displays such as North Atlantic right whale locations and decks for scenic views.

Also, staffing at the Seashore would be reduced for the daily monitoring of protected shorebirds along the Atlantic Ocean, limiting public access to some beaches, the coalition said. Typically each sumer, rangers and shorebird specialists track the birds' nesting locations daily to keep beach areas open for public use while also protecting animals like piping plovers.